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Cold Tolerance of the Medfly in Dates and in Mandarin for Adequate Quarantine Cold Treatments

Abstract

Low level infestations of fresh dates (Phoenix dactylifera L.) by the Mediterranean fruit fly, Ceratitis capitata (Wiedemann) (Medfly) are possible. A comparison of the cold-tolerance of the fly in ‘Barhi’ date fruits stored at 1.11°C to that in satsuma mandarin (Citrus unshiu, Marcovitch), indicated that when in Barhi dates it was significantly less tolerant to the cold treatment than when in mandarin. These results demonstrated that the quarantine cold treatments taken to disinfest mandarin from Medfly, are adequate enough if applied to fresh date commodities.

Yoav Gazit

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